


Covert Operations

by longwhitecoats



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:53:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5468915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longwhitecoats/pseuds/longwhitecoats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Millie receives a mysterious set of postcards, the Bletchley girls must work together to solve a case that's bigger than any they've faced before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chelseagirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelseagirl/gifts).



Steam clouded Lucy’s view of the train as it left King’s Cross. As she watched, it faded into a mere smudge of ink against the rainy sky, barely visible beyond the station’s roof; then it was gone—and Ben with it.

She looked down at her hands, still clutching the soft leather wallet which enfolded his badge, reading _Ben Gladstone_ in orderly lettering. He wouldn’t need it for his new assignment, he said. It was an undercover position far away to the north, and they’d have to get him a new badge. This was a relic. He’d meant to be kind, giving it to her, Lucy thought; Ben always meant to be kind; but she’d felt the sting of his disappointment as he offered it to her, as if he were leaving it with her because she, like the badge, belonged to a life he didn’t want anymore.

Wind whipped up the edges of her coat and tossed her curls. She pushed through the crowds on the platform until, half-attentive, she found herself on a stair. She followed it down to the ground and stood for some time next to a drinks cart under an alcove, where she bought a paper cup of hot coffee, simply to have something to do while her brain settled down.

It seemed so improbable that Ben had left her, that the whole affair was over. And yet, Lucy admitted to herself, the seeds of his departure had been present from the very beginning. She had always liked him, but never loved him. He was safe and gentle; he would never hurt her as Harry had done. He liked her smarts and he was a good man. But that was all.

Better that he was gone, she thought, blinking away her regret. Better for him to find a nice gentle girl who would adore him as he deserved.

Lucy sipped at the bitter coffee, feeling restless and miserable and wishing she had somewhere better to go than the cavernous flat she’d shared with Ben. Somewhere warm and comforting.

Unbidden, an image came to her mind: a sleek dress, fitted over a sturdy corset, worn by an athletic woman with brightly painted nails and ruby red lips, a cigarette dangling from her fingers. Millie. God, she didn’t know why she’d thought of Millie, but suddenly she was swept by a longing to see her. It’d been ages—almost since Millie had taken her trip to Scotland.

Filled with sudden fire, Lucy tipped her cup into the bin and hailed a taxicab.

*

“Coming,” Millie called, her voice dulled by the heavy door. The building was nicer than her last flat, Lucy thought, and in a better neighborhood; Millie must have come up in the world a bit. The doorlock clicked open, and Lucy had a sudden moment of panic— _I shouldn’t have come, what am I doing?_ —but then Millie opened the door, looking positively radiant in a silk robe and some sort of terribly fashionable pantsuit, and said, “Oh _darling_ , what’s wrong?” and Lucy instantly burst into tears and allowed herself to be shepherded inside, taking no small solace in the warm, perfumed arm around her shoulders.

“There now,” Millie said, when she’d fixed Lucy some tea and added a finger of gin for good measure—and then the same for herself, without the tea—“Darling, you look as though you’ve been wrung out like a towel! What’s the matter?”

“Oh,” Lucy said, sipping at the tea, “It’s just—Ben left. He’s gone to Yorkshire and I don’t believe he’s coming back.” And she spilled the whole story: Ben’s promotion; their fights, his reassurances; the day she said she wouldn’t mind if he left; the day he told her their flat would be hers alone; the awful good-bye at the station.

Millie rubbed a palm over her back, firm and warm and wonderful. Lucy leaned into her touch and closed her eyes. “Dear girl,” Millie said, “that’s horrid. I’m so sorry. I know you liked him awfully.”

Lucy sighed. “The worst bit is I don’t think I mind, really,” she said. “It’s a bit like Harry—not in that way, of course, Ben would never—but it’s just like the way I felt when I got clear of Harry. Simply—exhausted. And relieved, in a way.” She took a big gulp of her tea and realized her hands were shaking as the teacup clattered back down. “And then I hate myself for feeling it.”

She looked up, worried that her friend would be frowning, would think less of her; but Millie’s eyes were clear, full of nothing but concern and kindness, and Lucy felt something uncomfortable in her chest shift back where it ought to be.

“Here I am talking all about myself without a thought for you,” Lucy said, wiping her eyes. “This is a lovely flat! How have you been?”

“Oh, it’s a wretched flat, actually,” Millie said, laughing. “The heat never works and the windows make an awful rattling noise when the wind blows. I suspect the oven’s broken as well, but I haven’t checked.” She winked at Lucy then, lighting a cigarette; and Lucy grinned at her friend’s utter intractability on the subject of housekeeping. The place was also a mess, of course, jewelry scattered willy-nilly across stacks of paper, cosmetics crowding every free surface, books left open and half-read next to every chair. “But I’m well, as it happens. Got a bit of work through Alice, who seems to know every typist and secretary in London and most of those out of town, too. Terribly clever woman. I’ve been translating for a few professors up at Cambridge—they mail things, I mail them back. Occasionally we have a coffee when they’re in town. That stack there is for a gent who urgently needed some articles on psychoanalysis translated from German. Deadly boring, but it pays.”

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind a bit of light reading. The paperwork at the station’s quite dull, especially when one knows all the case numbers by heart.”

“Oh, you’re not thinking of leaving Scotland Yard?” Millie said. “Surely you can work your way up the ranks. You could be the first lady detective on the force!”

“They have one or two, actually,” said Lucy. “But they’d never look at me. I’m too—too little, I think.”

“Nonsense,” Millie said. “Hire me as your assistant. I’ll charm them silly and then you’ll have no need of roughhousing.”

Lucy giggled. “I shall keep it in mind.”

“Oh, and I’ve got some postcards from Susan,” Millie said, stretching an arm behind her to pick up a pile of letters. She tossed aside a few envelopes and then handed over four luridly colored postcards bearing some rather thrilling stamps. “From Delhi, you know. Not a peep all last year, and now this! But it sounds as if she’s doing well. And Timothy and the children,” she added, a bit hastily.

Lucy ran her fingers over them. They were exactly Susan, no nonsense and straight to the point: _Children in good health. Timothy’s been promoted again. We have taken over an entire villa in the older part of the city. I have plenty of time for my crosswords_. But then—

“‘Toodle pip’?” Lucy said, a bit incredulous. “Is that how she usually signs letters?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Millie said. “She’s never sent me letters before. But certainly I don’t believe I’ve ever heard her say ‘toodle pip’ in my life.”

“Nor I,” Lucy murmured. “But she’s signed it on every single postcard, look.” She handed them back.

“So she has,” Millie said. She frowned.

Something about the words nagged at Lucy. “Toodle pip,” she repeated.

“What is it, darling?” Millie said. “You’ve got that far-away look.”

Lucy nodded slowly. “I’m just—re-reading Susan’s notes. Whenever she left papers for us to read at Bletchley, or when we were—working together here—” She saw them all in her mind: hasty scribbles at the ends of memoranda or torn-off edges of newspapers, all of them direct to the point and signed only with the imprint of her first initial. _Redo. S._

She opened her eyes; Millie was still waiting patiently for her to resurface, and she thought for a moment how nice it was not to have to hide her gift, to be around someone who understood. “It isn’t how she signs things, Millie,” she said at last. “Not anything.”

“Then why—” Millie said; and then she went stiff. “Oh,” she said. “ _Heil Hitler_.”

“What?” Lucy sputtered, but Millie was standing and walking to her rotary ’phone.

“ _Heil Hitler_ ,” she repeated. “Some of the Germans used to sign their messages that way. And—remember when Alice realized they’d been moving letters into the header because it was easier for them? And then it was easier for us to crack, because of the repetition. It’s just the same.” She began to dial. “Peckham 225, please.”

“What on earth are you saying, Millie?” Lucy said, bewildered.

“Thank you,” Millie said into the line. Then, putting her hand over the mouthpiece: “It’s a code, Lucy. Susan’s sent us a code.”

*

Alice arrived sans umbrella, wet with rain and bubbling over with questions; Jean arrived nearly an hour later, bone-dry and smartly dressed as always, buttoned to the wrists and collar. She deposited her umbrella by the door, said, “Good evening, girls,” and went straight to the galley kitchen to make a new pot of tea for everyone.

The room felt resonant with a cheerful hum, the sort of endless buzzing noise Lucy associated solely with Bletchley and with these women who had served there: the scribble and tap of pencils, the rustling of paper, the low voices and murmurs as they consulted each other, questioned, agreed, puzzled together. Alice copied out all the postcards in a fair hand for herself and Jean; Millie hoarded the originals, and Lucy worked from memory. Over the course of the evening, they discovered what appeared to be a rotating alphabetic cypher in the initial letters of each line of text, and it then took very little time to crack it.

“Gosh, I’m famished now,” Millie said, pushing away the postcards.

“We haven’t done,” Jean said, eyebrows raised. “There’s still the work of actually decoding the cipher.”

“I’ll finish up,” Alice said cheerfully. “It’s just mechanical now. Happy to do it, if someone else is making me supper at the end.”

“I don’t suppose you have anything to cook with?” Lucy said doubtfully; Millie just pursed her lips, as if to say, _What do you think?_ “Right,” she said. “I’m not sure the shops are open...”

“Oh goodness’ sake, it’s all right. It’ll really only take me another moment,” Alice muttered. “And—hey presto!”

She dropped her pencil happily, and then as she read what she’d written, her face clouded.

“Alice?” Jean said. “What is it?”

“Well, it can’t have been anything good, can it, if Susan coded it separately over the course of _four_ postcards. Thank god you came over, Lucy, I can’t believe I missed that signature.” Millie reached down and gave Lucy’s shoulder a squeeze, and Lucy’s heart seemed to miss a beat. She smiled weakly.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” Alice said, and she held up her worksheet.

Amidst a cloud of other letters, Alice had written, in block print, the decoded message from Susan: TRAIN SABOTAGED.


	2. Chapter 2

“What train?” Alice said, her mouth half full. “I’ve been over all the papers and there’s nothing. Lucy, this is really lovely chicken.”

“Yes, really kind of you to have us round this afternoon, darling,” Millie said. “Especially since I’m such pants at cooking, or anything to do with keeping food in the house, as we found out yesterday.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Lucy said, blushing. She sipped her water to hide her pleasure. “I suppose I just got used to making a Sunday roast, and it seemed silly to eat it alone.”

Jean pointed at Alice with her fork, which rather undercut her usual severity. “You were looking in the London papers, weren’t you,” she said. “That’s why you didn’t find it. I’ve pulled up the last several months of the _Times of India_. We get them archived. I found it: a massive crash, just about six weeks ago.”

“Right before Susan started sending the postcards,” Millie said. She sighed. “Too much to hope she simply missed me, I suppose.”

“Oh, come off it, love,” Alice said, mouth full of green beans. “Susan adores you and that’s that. She trusted you with a secret code! about a secret crime! I’m not sure it gets more adoring than that in Susan’s book.”

Millie’s lips twitched in a faint smile, but Lucy thought she looked rather sad. “Well,” Millie said, “what about this crash, then? What’s it to do with sabotage?”

“Nought, according to the papers,” Jean said. “Alice is right. It _is_ a secret crime. A whole train derailed, crossing the border from India into Pakistan. Nearly everyone on board was killed. But all the papers say it was an accident.”

“And Susan says it wasn’t,” Lucy murmured. “How could she know?”

“Well, more to the point, what’s it to do with us?” Millie flicked her cig into the ashtray and leaned back in her chair. Her lipstick had left a ring of red around the filter. “We’re not the ones in bloody India.” Lucy realized she was staring at Millie’s lips, blinked, and looked away. Millie touched her brow, looking pained. “I’m awfully worried about Susan. What sort of trouble has she got into?”

Alice made a noise of agreement. “And she’s so far away. What if we can’t help, and something frightful happens?”

Jean shook her head. “We’ve no way of knowing what sort of fix she’s in. But whatever’s happened, if Susan sent you those postcards, she must believe there’s something we _can_ do about it, so the best thing we can do to help her is to press on.” She looked round the table, her jaw set. “If only we knew why the train was sabotaged...”

“Hang on,” Alice said. “This is a crime _Susan_ solved.”

Lucy and Jean just stared at her. Millie waved her hand. “So?”

“So,” Alice replied, pushing back her empty plate with a satisfied air, “what does Susan know that we don’t? Where is Susan getting her information? It’s just data flow. We need to backtrack along the flow of data until we find something we can access. What sources is she using?”

“Oh, good girl,” Jean said. “All right. The obvious: she’s got Timothy, in the Foreign Office.”

“No good,” Lucy said. “We can’t get the security clearance to find out anything from them.”

“What about the Army? They wouldn’t have access to the files?” Millie said, lighting another cigarette.

“No,” Jean said. “Either it’d be classified, or too old.”

“Could she know someone who works at the train company?”

Alice blew out a puff of air. “Maybe. But if she does, it’s likely to be someone who’s on the ground in Delhi, not someone in London.”

“Where does Susan go every day?” Jean said. “Does she take the children to school?”

“She’s schooling them,” Millie said grimly. “I imagine she goes to the shops...”

Lucy closed her eyes. “All right, she’s got to run a household. She gets up in the morning, fixes breakfast for everyone, gets Timothy out to work. She sets the children doing an activity. She takes a break for herself—what does she do for a break?”

“Oh, bloody hell,” Millie said roughly. “Jean—you said you read about the crash in the _Times of India_?”

“Yes.”

“ _So did she_ ,” Millie said. “The crossword. She does the bloody crossword every chance she gets. There must be one in her newspaper. That’s where she saw it. And she saw something else that made her realize that it—wasn’t right.”

“Good lord,” Jean said. “Right. First thing tomorrow, I’ll pull up the papers. Lucy, have you got any time off tomorrow?”

“Lunch, but that’s hardly time to get across town. I’ll leave a few minutes early, though, and meet you as soon as work’s done.” She felt a sort of glow rising in her chest. They had a case again. They were working together again. For the first time since Ben told her he was leaving, Lucy felt wholly awake and alive, as if she had been away and had come back to herself.

“Well, get away when you can. You know where to find me.”

*

Work fairly flew. Lucy’s brain seemed to be teeming with life, suddenly lit up and fizzing with excitement. Even her boss, DCI Martin, seemed to notice; he actually smiled at her as he signed paperwork for her in the morning, and said “Good-bye” when he left in the evening, which was practically a whole conversation for him. Lucy checked out at half four and dashed across town quick as she could. When she reached Jean’s desk at the library, Jean was just closing her books and shutting down for the day. She smiled at Lucy.

“Just give me a tick to clear everyone out, dear,” she said. “I’ve set up the papers in our usual room. Go on and start without me, I’ll be in momentarily.”

But Lucy paused when she came into the room; she hadn’t been in here since that horrid case when they nearly lost Millie, and she wondered all of a sudden why not. Had she been that wrapped up in Ben? Why hadn’t she been here all the time, not just to solve mysteries, but to breathe in the smell of the books, to watch Jean in her severe high-necked dresses and ties frowning at the patrons? To watch the stern line of Jean’s jaw, her broad shoulders?

“Something the matter, dear?” Jean said, walking in behind her. Lucy drew in a breath.

“No, sorry,” she said. “Just remembering.”

Jean gave her a shrewd look, then, which said that she knew better, but was too polite to ask.

“The papers are over here,” she said. “There are quite a lot of them, I’m afraid.”

They lapsed quickly into a familiar silence. As the archivist and data processor, respectively, Jean and Lucy had long since developed a working rapport which suited them; Jean selected, Lucy memorized, and then Jean would ask Lucy to search for particular names or types of information. But the first two steps were the longest. There were indeed a lot of papers, and Lucy felt herself slip into a mechanical sort of trance; she did as she was asked and did it easily, enjoying the simple and repetitive pleasure of being of use. Her mind seemed to be covered over with a delicate fog. She did not know how much time passed until she heard Jean say, “That’s the last of them,” and she looked up to see that it was dark outside and that Jean had donned her jacket.

“Oh,” Lucy said. And then, “It’s chilly.”

“I’ll make some tea,” Jean said. She bustled out.

Lucy sat, thinking. She read through the article detailing the crash; not a word about sabotage, or indeed any suspicious behaviour. It was apparently a tragic accident, caused by an old and faulty generator, and proved rather a blow for the freshly-minted government of India, who were anxious to establish their independent competence in the wake of the Raj.

“There you are,” Jean said, handing her a steaming cup of tea. She sat and folded her hands.

“Thank you. Oh. You’re not having any?” Lucy said, surprised.

Jean smiled. “You were cold. Now drink up and get warm.”

Something about being so cared for made Lucy feel warm all on its own—a bit hot, in fact, with Jean’s eyes on her as she lifted the cup of tea and drank. She felt as if it were Jean herself warming her, from the inside out.

She coughed.

“What I don’t understand,” Lucy said, “is why the train was so overloaded to begin with.”

“It’s the problem with Kashmir. Haven’t you been listening to the radio?” Jean _tsk’d_ gently, and it took Lucy a moment to realize that her disapproval was directed at the situation in Kashmir rather than at Lucy herself. “There’s hundreds of thousands of people still pouring across the border in both directions. It’s a proper cock-up and no mistake. Millions of people resettling in a country that’s never been theirs, just because of the way the land’s been divided. Mind you, I’m not saying I know what’s best. But surely it could’ve been handled better.”

“I had no idea,” Lucy said. “I suppose my mind’s been on other things.”

“Well, it’s not very pleasant to think about,” Jean conceded, lips pursed. “Anyway: to those newspapers. Have you got them all?”

“I think so,” Lucy said. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything about the trains,” Jean said. “Especially near the crosswords. Something Susan would have glanced at while she was solving her puzzles.”

Lucy’s eyes turned inward, and she let the teacup rest on the table as she leafed through the crossword pages of the _Times of India_.

“It’s mostly adverts,” she said, a bit dreamily. “Nothing about... hang on...”

_Transformer for sale, cheap! For sale: Heavy Duty Lathes. AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE SALE, one second-hand boiler. Wanted: One steam engine. Wanted: Turbo-generator with condensers. Wanted—_

“There’s all these advertisements for machine parts,” Lucy said. “Parts for sale or parts wanted. Same page as the crossword, every time. It’s not trains exactly, but...”

“I wonder,” Jean said. “Anything that repeats?”

Lucy looked.

“Yes,” she said. “Oh. _Oh_. It’s a generator. The same make, specifically for a locomotive. The same kind of train that crashed. And—” She startled, reading.

Jean leaned toward her. “ _What_ , girl?”

Lucy read aloud. “ ‘Any information on customs for this part please contact’—and then a phone number.” She blinked, clearing her vision. “Customs, Jean. Don’t you see? Susan realized the locomotive needed a generator and couldn’t get one. They’d been trying for months, advertising in the paper. Then the ads stop. Then they come back, but suddenly they’re asking about customs.”

“So? Maybe they decided to order the part.”

“I think they _did_ order the part. I think someone held it up at customs on purpose, and then the train crashed because the generator they had didn’t work. And Susan knew it.”

Jean sucked air through her teeth. “I don’t know, Lucy. It isn’t a lot to go on.”

“But it makes sense, Jean. It’s why Susan wrote to _us_. The part would have to clear customs here in London before being sent. And if you’re right and she’s also hearing about this from Timothy, it makes even more sense. He’s in the Foreign Office—surely they’d know if something in customs was fishy.”

“All right.” Jean folded her arms. Then she sat back in her chair and said more quietly, “Yes. All right. So Susan realizes the problem’s in Customs here in London, but she can’t do anything about it. Then she writes to us...”

“But if she simply figured it out from the newspapers, why send it in code? Why not just tell us to look at the papers too?”

“Ah,” Jean said. “Quite right. Yes. She sends it in code _because_ Timothy’s told her about it. She doesn’t want him to know that she wrote us about it. Or more likely, she doesn’t want anyone _else_ to suspect that Timothy told her.”

“And it’s more convincing to us this way, I suppose,” Lucy said, sipping the last of her tea. Jean stared at her. “Well, imagine if Susan had just written and explained the whole thing. Much more gripping if we go through the whole business of figuring it out on our own, isn’t it? Now we’re more likely to keep at it.”

Jean shook her head. “You’re a shrewd girl, Lucy,” she said. “I shouldn’t like to be on the wrong side of you.”

Lucy smiled. “I can’t imagine you ever could be. Whenever I’m with you, I feel so—” then she stopped.

Jean turned toward her, a slow intensity growing behind her eyes. It was as if Lucy had never quite had Jean’s full attention before, but now all the force of it was directed just at her, expectant and powerful. Lucy swallowed.

“Go on,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. She put the teacup down again, too hard, and it clattered in the saucer. She winced. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Spit it out, girl,” Jean said. “It’s painful to watch.”

Lucy looked up and forced herself to meet Jean’s gaze. She felt her lip quiver. “I—” she said. “Oh, god, Jean, you’ll think I’m such a _queer_ little thing,” she said, and suddenly she began to cry, surprising herself and making her cheeks burn with instant shame. She expected a whirlwind of fuss, a comforting hand, a blanket and a stern admonition to forget the whole thing and get a good night’s rest.

But to her shock, Jean reached a hand over, and slowly, oh-so-softly, she tipped Lucy’s chin up with two fingers, her thumb laid tenderly on Lucy’s cheek. Lucy felt a tingle run all through her body. Somehow, Jean _knew_. She had read all the little signs, the secret messages of Lucy’s blushes and sighs. The slight overemphasis on _queer_.

“You wouldn’t be the only queer thing in here,” Jean said, voice steady as a rock.

Tears streaming down her cheeks, Lucy felt the world snap into focus.

“Jean,” she said.

“It’s okay,” Jean said. “You’re safe here. I won’t tell.”

She started to take her hand away, but now Lucy couldn’t bear for Jean to misunderstand, for her not to know _all_ of what she felt. She snatched Jean’s hand back in her own and held it fiercely, even though it was so much larger and stronger than her own, even though something in Lucy’s gut seemed to churn and roil. After a moment’s hesitation, Jean gripped her hand back.

“I think about Millie all the time,” Lucy said, before she could stop herself. She wanted to stop herself, she felt foolish, but somehow she had to say it, had to take a chance before this fragile moment ended. “Her—her dresses. You know. How beautiful she is, and her pretty lipstick, and the way she runs her fingernails over a pack of cigs before she opens it. And it just feels wrong and strange to say and I know I oughtn’t, but I never felt that way about Harry, nor Ben, not ever. Just—like I’m burning up and melting all at the same time, and I don’t know what I’d do if she actually let me touch her like I want to. I can’t imagine it. Oh, Jean, tell me to go home. Tell me to take some headache pills and lie down until it’s passed. I don’t know what I’ll do, Jean, I’ve never told anyone.” She was crying again, an ignominious, mucus-laden sort of crying, but Jean didn’t seem to care, didn’t let go of her hand.

Jean squeezed her fingers a bit and said, “There’s nought wrong with you, girl. Don’t you know there were plenty of us during the war who liked a bit of skirt? And after, too. Why, Millie’s known about me for years, and so did half of Bletchley. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Goodness, don’t go beating yourself up about this. What’s the harm in kissing a girl now and then? –Do you want my handkerchief?”

Jean let go of Lucy’s hand long enough to produce a little kerchief in a neat tartan, which Lucy took with a murmured thanks and dabbed at her nose and eyes.

“It isn’t just Millie,” Lucy said. “It’s also—I think about you.”

Something hot and wild came over Jean’s eyes. Her pupils seemed to dilate, like an animal sensing prey.

“About me?” she said.

“Last year,” Lucy said, willing her nerves away, “when I pretended to be your—servant, I suppose. Your amanuensis. I liked it an awful lot and I couldn’t say why.”

“Try,” Jean said, a note of steel in her voice.

Lucy shuddered. “I don’t know, I just—you were so gorgeous, Jean, and so powerful. I liked pretending that I was doing your bidding. Serving you. Pulling out your chair, handling your money. Being useful.”

Jean looked at her for a long moment. “I’ve played that game with other girls,” she said at last.

A thrill went through Lucy. “Oh,” she said. And then: “Could—do you think you would play it with me again...?”

Jean took a deep breath in through her nose and straightened her spine.

“Please?” Lucy said, as sweetly as she knew how.

Jean smiled.

“I’ll just lock up, so no one will bother us,” she said, as if deciding something, and marched over to the front doors. Lucy heard the jingle of keys. When Jean returned and sat, there was something different about the air between them. It felt charged with possibility.

“First rule,” Jean said. “If you want to stop playing, at any moment, you must tell me. Do you understand?”

Lucy nodded.

“You must also tell me if I am doing something you don’t like. Though sometimes I might like to be quite severe with you.”

Lucy took a sharp breath. “I think I should like it if you were severe with me, Jean.”

“Very well. Come here. Stand up, girl.” Jean reached out a hand. Her manner had changed; she was calmer, sharper than usual, without the cloud of worry that seemed to hang around her all the time.

She looked quite in charge of the situation.

Trembling with excitement, Lucy stood up and stepped closer to Jean, so that their knees brushed. Jean reached up and put a hand on Lucy’s waist. Then she pulled her in closer, causing Lucy to stumble slightly, and when she had righted herself she was pressed against Jean’s body, standing in between her legs. Jean’s fingers slid down to her backside, and Lucy flushed. “Oh,” she said.

“You must tell me,” Jean said. “I know you’re quite a good girl, Lucy. But sometimes good girls like to be punished a bit when they go astray, just to be reminded what the rules are.” She began to run both her hands over Lucy now, one on her arse and the other slipping up her waist to her breast, where her thumb flicked softly over Lucy’s nipple. Lucy had never in her life felt so electrically charged. She moaned. “Tell me, Lucy: would you like a bit of punishment? Just to remind you what happens if you’re not such a good girl?”

“Oh,” Lucy said. She clenched her hands at her sides, thinking about it. In the back of her mind, she remembered Harry; but this didn’t feel like that at all. This felt safe. Better than safe—this felt _good_. “Yes, I would like that, please.”

Jean smiled. “Now don’t move, girl.” And she brought her hand down with a _smack!_ on Lucy’s arse, just enough for Lucy to feel it. It didn’t really hurt, but it took Lucy’s breath away. “Now give me a kiss and say thank you.”

Lucy felt a sudden heat between her legs, and she wanted very badly to touch herself, but she kept her hands at her sides and did as she was told: she leaned down and planted a kiss on Jean’s lips. They were much softer than Lucy had expected; but then, she’d never kissed a woman before. “Thank you,” she said.

Another _smack!_ came down on her arse, harder this time. Lucy groaned with pleasure. “Noisy girl. Good thing there’s no one to hear. Come on and kiss me, now,” Jean said.

Lucy kissed her with rather more confidence this time, pressing her lips firmly against Jean’s. “Thank you,” she breathed.

“You’re such a sweet thing,” Jean said, and smacked her again.

When Lucy had been kissed and smacked nearly into lightheadedness, Jean told her she was a very good girl indeed and whisked her off her feet as if she were nothing more than another library book to be folded up and tidied away. Jean carried her to the cot that always stood in the corner, ever since Lizzie’s stay, and she laid Lucy down; and then there was a glass of water, which Lucy drank gratefully.

“I think you might like to be rewarded now, for being such a good girl; would you like that?” Jean said. Lucy nodded. Jean slipped her hand under Lucy’s skirt and found the hot place between Lucy’s legs, just where Lucy had learned to touch herself when Harry was not around; and she worked at Lucy until she cried out, so loud that she could have sworn the next block would hear.

“Sleep well, girl,” Jean said, and kissed her forehead; and then Jean was turning out the light and covering her in a blanket, and Lucy thought she had never been so tired nor so happy in her life.


	3. Chapter 3

Once Millie and Alice heard about the newspapers and the customs office, it took them little time to decide that the first order of business was to let Susan know they were investigating the problem. After debating a few messages, Millie convinced them that simplest was best; they mailed back a postcard using the same code, which spelled out: ON THE CASE. Jean refused to let Millie sign it _Toodle pip!_ , even though Alice and Lucy both laughed.

However, it seemed that they’d run into a snag; none of them could figure out how to get into the customs office records. Lucy began to wonder whether she could ask DCI Martin if he had any work over there, thinking maybe some of the paperwork would exist in copies in Scotland Yard’s files; but then Alice heard through her typing pool that a secretarial job was opening up in the Customs office, and it took very little to get Millie hired. On the day of her interview, Millie flounced into the library in a dress so tight Lucy wondered how she could breathe. Later that night, flush with daring from their first encounter, Lucy begged Jean for such a spanking that she was sore for a full week.

After that, Lucy couldn’t get enough of Jean. She’d go to work and think of Jean’s hands on her, inside her, and then she’d go to the library and tiptoe up to Jean’s desk and ask if Jean wanted to _play_ with her good girl. And Jean always wanted to play. She made Lucy dust the shelves, some nights, and then surprised her by tipping her gently over the bookcase and fucking her till she moaned; she played a game where Lucy had to be very quiet, because it was a library, no matter what Jean did under her skirts, and then Jean would smack her thighs if she made a noise. On one memorable day when her leg was bothering her and she had her cane, she made Lucy wrap her thighs on either side of its shaft and ride the cane on her knees by Jean’s chair. The cane pressed against her over her underthings, and Jean’s hands pulled at her curls, and she cried out Jean’s name over and over.

And Millie—she seemed to feel that something was different about Lucy, now; or perhaps there _was_ something different about Lucy, and it drew the eye. She felt the weight of each woman’s eyes in the street, when she only used to think of her grocery lists or what Ben might like her to do with her hair. Now every time she passed a pretty girl or a handsome one, she wondered: _her too?_ And every time she caught Millie’s eyes on her, she thought, if only, if only.

A fortnight went by. Their initial nervousness at having Millie working so close to the culprit faded, and even Alice’s considerable appetite for solving puzzles began to wane as they sifted passenger lists and newspaper reports, hunting for a motive for crashing the train, but came away empty-handed.

Then one evening, Millie rang to say she had important news, and they all met at her place for a nightcap.

“I’ve found him,” she said, pouring out tea and handing the cups round. Alice put hers against her cheek and cradled her hands around the sides of the cup. It really was getting cold, Lucy had to admit.

“Who’ve you found?” Lucy said. “Thank you. Not our saboteur?”

“Yes, I think so,” Millie nodded. She lit a cigarette without taking a sip of her own tea. “At first I thought it was the desk clerk. Shifty fellow. And he’s the one in charge of marking whether to hold items or not. I checked the catalogue. But I when asked him about it—”

Jean _tsk’d_. “Millie, you must be more careful!”

“Oh tosh, Jean, you’d have done exactly the same thing. Anyway it isn’t him. He said it was funny I was asking, because a senior officer had told him to hold the part.”

“Well, you don’t know that,” Alice said. The steam from her teacup had made her hair rise slightly and begin to curl. “He could just as easily have been lying.”

Millie sipped her tea. “Perhaps. But I looked into this senior officer. Works down the hall—I barely see him. It turns out he’s ex-army. Major Ian Trimmer. Want to guess where he was stationed during the war?”

They all looked at each other.

“Burma,” Millie said triumphantly. “With the British Indian Army. If that isn’t suspicious, I don’t know what is.”

“Very well. But what do you propose we do about it?” Jean asked, raising her eyebrows pointedly.

Lucy considered. “Well, tomorrow’s Friday. What if we all came round to Millie’s office to meet her for a drink, and then we can slip inside and interview our suspect? If it’s before the end of working hours, there’ll still be people about. It won’t quite be as if we’re alone with him.”

“That makes good sense,” Jean said approvingly, and Lucy felt herself blush. “All right. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Millie echoed, raising her cup, and Alice followed suit; but as they all drank, Millie seemed to look at Jean with something like mistrust.

*

“Nice office,” Alice said, sidling up to Millie. Lucy had to agree. Scotland Yard might sound quite grand, but in reality it was a series of dim, smoky rooms full of paper. His Majesty’s Customs and Excise—no, Lucy corrected herself, _Her_ Majesty’s Customs and Excise—was still in the massive old Custom House by the river, stood there for however many centuries. It had been rebuilt quite beautifully under George IV, and the long hall where they now stood rose to an impressive height, an airy chamber echoing with the sonorous questions of bustling customs officers.

Millie smiled. “My office isn’t nearly so splendid—just a desk tucked away with the other secretaries,” she said. “But I’ve found out where the Major is. Are we all here?”

“Present and accounted for,” Jean said, her heels clacking as she came up behind them. “Let’s put this to bed.”

They followed Millie down a side hall and through a twisting set of corridors until they reached an office door with the name TRIMMER on its plate. Millie nodded to the secretary outside as they passed. “He’s off the phone, go on in,” she said, and Millie waved her thanks.

They went in.

“Sorry to bother you, sir,” Millie said as they filed in after her. The room was smaller than Lucy had expected, and together she thought the four of them must seem rather imposing, especially as they had not been introduced. The Major, for his part, looked exactly as she had imagined: a ruddy-faced gentleman of advancing years, his hair and whiskers white but neatly trimmed, and his spine ramrod straight. He had been reading some papers, and he startled when Millie spoke to him.

“Who the devil are you?” he barked. “Gertie! Where’s Gertie? Do you have an appointment? I say!”

“We don’t have an appointment—” Alice began, and then Jean cut in, “We’re here about the generator, Major.”

Major Trimmer fell silent. It was an awful silence, Lucy thought; he looked very dangerous, even all alone in his office in daylight, and she wished Millie had brought her pistol.

“Now you see here,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re about. But you’d better keep your mouths shut, or it shall go very ill for you, I promise you.”

Millie moved toward the desk, slow but steady in her kitten heels.

“Millie—” Lucy said, a warning, or a plea for them to leave, but Millie kept walking forward quite calmly and produced something from her purse. It was a newspaper: the _Times of India_. She unfolded it to the page listing the details of the crash and placed it gently on the Major’s desk.

His face went white.

“We know, Major Trimmer,” she said.

He ran his fingers over the page. “Good god,” he said. “I’d no idea this is what it was for...” He went stock-still for a moment, reading. “So many dead. Dear God.”

Trimmer’s face, which moments before had been the terrifying expression of a professional killer, softened and then crumbled, revealing a tired old man worn out by duty.

“If it’s me you’ve come after for this, then you only know half the story,” he said. “You’d better sit down. And close the door.”

Tentatively, Lucy found a chair and sat, and Alice with her; Jean stood, cane and all, perhaps out of some old army instinct not to sit in the presence of a superior officer. Millie leaned on the window and lit up a cig, an attitude which Lucy recognized as an attempt to hold in her feelings.

Trimmer went to a sideboard and produced a decanter of whiskey, from which he poured himself a glass, and offered the rest round. When they had all taken a glass, save Jean, the major sat heavily in his chair again and sighed.

“How you worked it out, I can’t imagine. But you’ve got the wrong man. I know it must seem quite suspicious; but if I’m to be carted off to jail, it may as well be for the crime I actually committed, rather than this bloodbath.” He gestured at the paper with his tumbler. “How did you work it out, by the way?”

“The papers,” Lucy said, before anyone else could say anything. “I always do the crossword, and I saw the advertisements for the engine parts.”

Trimmer shook his head. “Clever. If only you’d worked it out in time to stop the crash. I didn’t work it out either, of course. I assumed it was a matter of money, or that the blackmailer wanted the part for his own purposes.”

“Blackmailer?” Alice cried. “You were being blackmailed?”

“So he says,” Jean murmured, but Millie hushed her.

“I know how it sounds. I can produce the letters if you like, though they’re only typewritten. Believe me, I would’ve tried to trace the handwriting—anything. But they had me in a bind. It is the great secret of my life. I thought no one knew. But now...” he touched the newspaper again, and sighed. “I had rather it be known what I did than be thought a callous murderer.

“I was stationed in Burma during the war,” Trimmer said, lighting a cigarette of his own and taking a puff. “I believe you knew that—Millie, is it? Yes, of course you did. Well, hardly a secret, that. Led a regiment through the worst sort of jungle warfare you can imagine, fighting the Japs. By the end of the war they knew it was going badly for them, and it only made them more vicious. And with the defectors to the Indian National Army—well, we were beset on all sides. It was more of a crawl toward victory than a march.

“I don’t suppose you ladies know all the nastier things that happened in the east during the war—though I should say I know plenty of women who served king and country, and they did so ably. But you must understand that India was a different animal. You hear on the radio nowadays, all these politicians shouting about the Raj rising again, and how we should never have let the empire fall, all that rot. Take it from me: the empire had already fallen.”

Here, Trimmer paused to take a long drag of his cigarette, and he stared into his whisky. “No—it was a bad business. They don’t talk about it much, but there was a famine for the better part of the war. Whole villages starving to death while we marched through with our packs full of food. It was too much to bear, after a while.

“The day came when we’d all simply had it. We were returning from a dead-end deployment, passing through one of these wretched little places, and there were women and children begging us for food. They were little more than skeletons. The men looked to me, but it was clear they wanted to do something. We were less than a day from our base; we could resupply. I told them to jettison their rations at will.”

Shaking his head, Trimmer finished off his whisky and went to pour another. His cigarette smoked in the ashtray. Lucy saw that his hands were shaking.

Jean took a step forward. “Pardon me for saying so, sir, but that’s hardly treason. Soldiers did far worse in the war than offer food to starving villages.”

“You haven’t heard the worst of it,” Trimmer said, sitting down again. “God, I can’t believe I’m saying this. But perhaps it’s better if it’s known.” He sighed.

“Before we could leave the village, a messenger found us. We were to redeploy immediately to meet an ambush from a Japanese battalion that meant to cut off a supply line. It was back the way we’d come—back into the jungle. A redeployment meant days away from base. We’d be without food. At best, we’d be well below fighting trim; have you seen an infantryman on an empty stomach? But truthfully, I feared we’d starve. God only knew how long we’d be gone. And there was no question of getting the food back from the villagers—most of them had already vanished into their houses or gone to take the food to relatives god knows where.

“So I made the only decision I could: I disobeyed an order to deploy, and I began to lead the men back to base.”

Jean and Millie gasped. Alice just stammered. “I don’t understand. You disobeyed a direct order? My god. And the ambush went ahead? You lost the supply line as well?”

Trimmer tapped his cigarette on the ashtray and inhaled, sucking the coals down to the filter. Then he stamped the butt out in the ash. “As it happens, this is where the tale turns a bit funny. It’s why I’ve kept the secret all these years. You see, it had taken the messenger so long to find us that the Japanese battalion had moved. They were between us and the base. Nearly as soon as we began the march, they rushed our lines. Fortunately, we weren’t surprised for long, and we smashed them. But the messenger had been in the front of the lines, and he was killed.”

At this, the major leaned forward over his desk, fixing them with an intense stare. “You see the point? No one who would have told the secret was left alive; and no one outside of the regiment knew. As far as the brass were concerned, we’d executed our mission brilliantly, protecting the supply line with minimal losses and returning to base in record time. Certainly none of the men would wish to be charged with desertion, or worse, treason; it’s an easy choice between prison and being lauded as a hero. Even now, none of them could let the secret out without serious personal cost. The only one with nothing to lose, who might be able to blackmail me, was that little messenger; and I buried him myself in the jungle, on the other side of the world.”

“But then—” Lucy frowned. “How did the blackmailer know? How could anyone know?”

“Who would want to hurt you, that’s my question,” Millie said. “Had you any enemies, Major?”

Trimmer shook his head. “Every man makes enemies, I suppose, but nothing worse than your garden-variety dislike. I’m a simple man, miss, if you’ll forgive my saying so after such an incredible tale. I’ve never been one for intrigue and secrets. This is the only real secret I’ve ever kept.”

“May we see the letters, Major?” Alice said. “Perhaps there’s a clue.”

“You may keep them, if you like,” Trimmer replied, shuffling in a drawer. He handed over a collection of typewritten letters on thick paper, tied together with packing string. “I haven’t heard from the blighter since this business with the generator, and I hope I shall never hear from him again.”

Alice untied the bundle and handed them to Lucy, who began paging through them. No greeting or signature, of course; all very threatening and to the point. “Do you still have the envelopes as well?” Lucy asked.

“No envelopes,” Trimmer said. Lucy looked up sharply in alarm. “Oh yes, you have it right. Each of these letters was hand-delivered to my desk without Gertie knowing. The blackmailer has been inside this building.”

*

With little left to say, they shook hands with Major Trimmer and promised him that his secret would be safe in their custody. “To tell the truth, it is better having it known,” he confided to Millie as she left. “It has been an awful weight.”

“Well,” Alice said, when they had emerged onto the quay, “what on earth are we going to do now?”

“You believe him?” Lucy said.

Jean pursed her lips. “It’s difficult to imagine him concocting all that on the spot. And his distress when he saw the paper looked genuine.”

Millie put a hand to her forehead. “What I don’t understand is _why_. What kind of man waits the better part of a decade to blackmail someone, just to murder hundreds of innocent people in a foreign country?”

“It’s the _how_ that’s troubling me,” Alice said. “On the face of it, there’s no way anyone could have known.”

“Back to square one,” Millie agreed, sounding despondent. “Come on, let’s have that drink after all, and we can sort the rest out at the library tomorrow.”

As they walked away down the north bank of the Thames, Lucy felt a prickle of cold on her neck. She turned to look behind them, but there were only a handful of pedestrians scampering home along their own paths, not at all interested in four women chatting casually about murder. She shivered. Something made her feel sure that they were being watched as they went.


	4. Chapter 4

It was dark, in that little place under the stairs. Lucy saw it all so vividly: the lifeless spill of the girl’s wrist on the concrete; the cigarette butts on the ground nearby; the bruises and blood. She startled awake.

For a while, the nightmares had left her alone. She hadn’t thought of those poor girls in years. But now, having thought of them, the images came flooding back in horrid detail. Closing her eyes did nothing; reaching for the light, turning it on with trembling fingers, was no use either. Not for the first time, she cursed her brain and its perfect recall, her inability to forget.

Lucy breathed. She was alone in her bed, now much too large for one person. Ben was not there to see; she had no need of feeling ashamed of her fear, or of whatever she might do to quell it. Leaning back so that the light fell across her face, she slipped her fingers under the edge of her nightgown and thought of Jean.

 _Good girl_ , Jean’s voice said. She studied her memory of Jean: her neatly coiffed hair and sparkling, dark eyes; the fullness of her lips, and the way one corner of her mouth always pulled down, giving her a permanently bemused expression. She thought of Jean’s crisply starched collars, how she was always took such care with her appearance, even if it was not in the same style as flamboyant, feminine Millie.

Her hand stilled.

Millie.

Beautiful, gay Millie with her tinted hair and her flashy jewelry, Millie of the perfect Victory rolls and ruby lipstick, as blood red as the union jack. Brave, passionate Millie with the giant heart, who always leapt before she looked, whose palm on Lucy’s back had felt like—felt so—

“ _Oh_ ,” Lucy whispered into the quiet of her bedroom, her whole body tensing and then quiescing.

Then she said it again, with the regret of realization: “Oh.”

*

The next morning, it was all Lucy could think about. She felt miserable, torn in two. What could she say to Jean? For that matter—to Millie? She’d no reason to believe Millie had any of the same feelings for her; she was warm and kind to everyone. But then, another voice whispered, Jean had said Millie’d known about her for _years_... what did that mean? Had they...?

A passing cyclist shouted at Lucy to get out of the road. She shook her head to clear it. It was Saturday; the streets were filled with people, and all of them looking at her funny. “Sorry,” she muttered to no one in particular. She felt her cheeks burning. Really, she oughtn’t be allowed in public in this condition. Hurrying her steps, she went directly to the library.

But when she arrived, all her worries were driven from her head by the sound of Millie crying in the other room.

“What’s happened?” she said, nearly tripping in her haste to get through the door. “Millie, are you all right?”

Jean was fixing tea and looking thunderous, while Alice held Millie’s hand at the table. “I’m fine,” Millie said, taking shaky breaths between sobs. “Just rattled. After all that nasty business last year, it’s just—well, it brought it all back.”

“What, visiting with the major?” Lucy hung up her coat and went to sit on Millie’s other side, rubbing a palm between her shoulders as Millie had done for her.

“Oh, darling, thank you. No—not dear Major Trimmer. No, I was followed.”

“Followed?” Lucy looked up in shock. Jean nodded, handing down the cup of tea to Millie.

“From her home, no less,” Jean said darkly. “Whoever it was knew where she _lives_.”

“Jean,” Alice admonished, but Millie waved a hand.

“It’s all right. I have to face it. It was ghastly, though, I don’t mind saying. This shadow in a cheap hat dogging me half the way here, until I thought to stop in a flower shop until he left.” Millie took a sip of her tea. “Ugh. It was awful.” She looked up at her friends imploringly. “What on earth are we going to do, chums? Who is this dreadful fellow?”

“Courage, my dear,” Jean said. “We’ll keep you safe, I promise you that. You needn’t go back to your flat tonight.”

“No indeed,” Lucy said, finding her voice. “You can stay at mine. The bed’s big enough for two, and I’ll fix you a good supper.” She blushed at the implications of _the bed’s big enough for two_ , but Millie just smiled at her.

“You’re so good to me, darling,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Has anyone else been followed?” Alice said. “I haven’t seen anyone.”

Lucy frowned. “I didn’t mention it, because I put it down to nerves,” she said, “but yesterday I could swear that someone was watching us when we came out of the Customs House.”

“We should give this over to the authorities,” Jean said. “This is out of our depths. Major Trimmer has said he’ll take what’s coming, and I think we need to take him at his word.”

“No,” Millie said firmly. “Jean, we can’t. We don’t know what sort of fix we might leave Susan in, to say nothing of Timothy and the children, and god knows who else. Anyway, we’ve made our bed, and I’ll lie in it if I have to, but we’ll _get_ the bastard. I’m not giving up just because he’s spooked me. I think I’m made of sterner stuff than that.”

And she looked round at them all so fiercely that they suddenly all broke into laughter.

“So you are, dear,” Jean said, chuckling. “I’d never doubt your nerve.”

“What can we do?” Alice said. “We’ve no idea how to catch him.”

“We can start with what we’ve got and work quickly,” said Jean. “We know the blackmailer had something to do with the war. I’ll see what personnel rolls I can find.”

“And I’ve got the payroll list from Customs and Excise,” Millie said. “We can cross-correlate, at least.”

“I’ll work on motive, I suppose,” Alice said. “There must be some clue in those newspapers.”

Lucy nodded. “All right. I’ll get Millie home and go through the payroll.”

They took a roundabout route back to Lucy’s place, stopping in at the butcher, where Lucy spent a little more than she ought in order to get a nice dinner roast. She thought of her nearly-empty liquor cabinet, and wondered if she ought to stop to amend that too; but then she decided efficiency was the better part of valor, with the way Millie was shaking. After only a few detours through crowded squares to lose anyone still following them, they arrived at Lucy’s oversized flat.

Millie immediately melted into the couch and put a hand over her forehead, sighing deeply, for all the world like a tragic beauty in a Rossetti painting. Lucy couldn’t help but smile.

“I’ll fix you a cuppa,” Lucy offered.

“That’s all right,” Millie said. “Jean’s a terror with that kettle. I’m full to bursting with tea. Have you got anything stronger?”

“Just some sherry.”

“Wonderful,” Millie said, reviving instantly. “I’ll fetch it.”

Millie didn’t seem to want to talk about the man who’d followed her, and Lucy didn’t push; instead, they chatted about Millie’s job at Customs, which she liked but found a little dull, and about what sort of work she might do afterward, if her security clearance ever got restored (“You know how the army is,” Millie said bitterly); and then about Lucy and her lovely, too-large flat, and then as the sherry bottle gradually emptied, about why Ben had left, and how Lucy missed him.

“It’s not really him that I miss, I think,” she said, carving the roast onto plates and spooning peas on the side. “It’s just the feel of having someone with you.”

Millie grinned and took a plate. “I know a girl at the office who swears by hunting dogs,” she said. “If you just want something warm and living to greet you at the door.”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said. She sat and unfolded her napkin. “It’s more—having a _partner_. Someone who’s always with you, to be on your—on your _team_. I don’t know,” she said again. She peered at the sherry bottle and wondered how much of its emptying had been her responsibility. “Being alone is awfully tiring sometimes.”

She looked at Millie, unsure of herself; but Millie just gave her a wink and said, “I know just what you mean, darling,” and tucked into her roast.

They chewed in silence for a moment, and then Lucy said, “I’ve been seeing Jean.”

Millie put down her fork and swallowed.

“Seeing Jean?” she said, her voice low and rough.

Too late, Lucy wondered whether it had been wise to mention it, but she couldn’t stop now. “Yes,” she said. “At the library.” Then, as Millie didn’t say anything, she clarified: “The way I used to see Ben, I mean.” Though it wasn’t like that at all, she wanted to add. But she couldn’t work out how else to get the meaning across.

Millie dropped her gaze to her napkin. “Ah,” she said. “Well. Jean is a wonderful woman.” Lucy felt her heart sink. Millie gave her a weak smile. “I’m happy for you.”

It was so much kinder than she’d dared hope—and yet Lucy felt gutted, as if something precious had been smashed irreparably.

“Thank you,” was all she said; and Millie smiled again; and they ate the rest of their meal without talking.

After they’d washed up, Lucy found a pair of Ben’s pajamas he’d left behind and offered them to Millie. When she saw Millie in them, though, she suffered such a pang that she almost regretted offering to have her stay: Millie looked so handsome and strong, and yet so elegant and beautiful as Ben never had, and when she climbed into bed next to Lucy and whispered “Good night, darling,” Lucy thought her heart would burst in some ecstacy of sorrow, knowing now that Millie could never feel as Lucy did for her.

Staring at Millie’s shoulders, mere inches away across an unbridgeable distance, Lucy whispered, “Good night, Millie.”

And then, her fingertips brushing the edge of Millie’s pillow: “I’m glad you’re here.”

That made Millie turn over to face her, and for a moment they looked at each other in the dark, and Millie’s smile was wide and genuine.

“Darling Lucy,” she said, and she put a hand under Lucy’s chin, an unwitting echo of Jean’s gesture. “I’m glad I’m here too.”

They fell asleep together, and Lucy did not have nightmares.

*

In the morning, Lucy had a brief moment of disorientation, seeing the pajamas on the other side of the bed; but then she saw the long red hair on the pillow, and her heart clenched in her chest. She longed to reach over and run her fingers through that lovely hair, to wrap an arm around Millie’s waist and pull her close.

Then Millie stirred, and stretched, and said: “Oh, good morning, dearest. Do you know, I’m positively ace at making breakfast?”

And then everything was easy, just like it had always been: Millie skipped out of bed and made free with all the contents of Lucy’s cupboards, chattering pleasantly about how well she’d slept and how she ought to buy nothing but men’s pajamas from now on, and how were they going to track down this blasted blackmailer, and did Lucy have any sugar for pancakes? All the while, Lucy made tea and simply sat at her table, laughing at Millie’s antics and grinning like an idiot, swinging her legs below the chair.

Breakfast was thick pancakes (more like hotcakes if Lucy was honest, but they were delicious) with beans and tea and one strip of bacon each and a fat tomato cut in half and cooked in with the bacon. They did the washing up together, and when Millie left to go back to her own flat for clothes and sundries, she gave Lucy a sticky kiss on the cheek.

A stillness hung in the air, with Millie gone. Lucy looked around the big empty flat, and she thought of everything she’d said to Millie the night before. She thought about how Jean made her feel excited and safe, just what she’d thought she always wanted but could never have at the same time. Harry had been exciting once, she thought, but he was dangerous, and she would never want to live that way again; and Ben had been so safe, but with him, she’d never felt really alive.

And then she thought of how empty and crushed she’d felt when Millie said _I’m happy for you_ , and the words rattled around and around in her brain with Millie’s hair and Millie’s lips and Millie in those pajamas and Millie in her _bed_ and—

“Damn,” she swore to herself. And then, louder, in Ben’s voice: “ _Dammit_ , Lucy-loo, just come out and say what you mean!”

It didn’t help. She put her head in her hands. For three-quarters of an hour, she sat like that, thinking; and then she put on her shoes and coat and went to the library, hoping Jean would be there on a Sunday.

*

“Come on in, girl, don’t stand hovering in the doorway like a ghost,” Jean called. “I’m just doing a bit of organizing. We’ve let this room get into such a state.” Lucy stepped into the room.

She was bustling about, same old Jean, industrious and sturdy as ever. Lucy seemed to see double; for a moment, she was watching two moments in time. She saw the Jean she’d always known, the steadfast soldier, looking after her girls because there was a war on, and that was what a Scotswoman did. And she saw the Jean who liked to play with Lucy, breathtakingly severe and equally kind, who’d been inside her in all sorts of ways, who knew her like no one ever had. Jean was a miracle.

She must’ve noticed the look on Lucy’s face, because she stopped in the middle of reshelving and said, “What is it, girl?”

Lucy took a deep breath. “I hardly know how to say it,” she began. “You look so beautiful today, Jean.”

Jean clucked at her. “Well, that’s a preamble to something you don’t want to say, isn’t it?”

She had Lucy dead to rights. Dropping her purse, Lucy sat in the nearest chair. It felt easier this way, looking up at Jean; she liked to know that Jean was bigger than she was, that she could endure.

“It is,” Lucy admitted. “Jean, I—I think I need to stop. Playing, I mean.”

Jean’s face clouded. She sat down. “Have I upset you?”

“No! No, god, nothing like that. You’re—you’ve been wonderful.” Lucy studied her hands. “It’s just—” She sighed and closed her eyes. “I think I’m in love with Millie.”

When she opened her eyes again, Jean was smiling and shaking her head.

“Dear girl. I’ve known that for ages! Do you mean to tell me you’ve only just sorted it out yourself?”

Lucy laughed, startled, and then she just kept laughing, and Jean began to laugh too. She reached across the papers on the table and took Lucy’s hand.

“Now see here,” she said. “Haven’t you wondered why I live all alone, and why I know so much about playing games with pretty girls?”

“I hadn’t thought,” Lucy said. “I suppose I assumed it was—what everyone did, who’s like us.”

Jean clucked her tongue again. “Nonsense, girl. I live this way because I _like_ it. No one to demand dinner and no one to answer to. I’ve never really had a taste for it, you know, all that domesticity. And there’s pretty girls enough in London to keep me busy when I feel the need.” Her eyes twinkled. “But the point is, there’s plenty of girls who do like a nice Sunday dinner and lace curtains and the whole bit. And some of them like girls too.”

She squeezed Lucy’s hand, and Lucy felt something spike her heart. Jean so rarely let her feelings show, but Lucy could see real regret in her expression now, right there alongside her kindness and her dogged practicality. Jean’s voice became thick with feeling as she said, “I think you’re one of those girls, my dear. And there’s no shame in it. If that’s what you want, you go right out and get it. You’ve had so much unhappiness, dear. Don’t you let any sense of obligation prevent you from being just as happy as you can.”

“Oh, Jean,” Lucy cried, tears suddenly spilling down her cheeks, and she threw her arms around Jean’s neck. “Oh, my dear Jean, I’m just so grateful for you,” she said, and she wept with relief into Jean’s beautifully starched collar.


	5. Chapter 5

The payroll, sadly, proved to be a dead end. Lucy spent hours running it over and over in her mind, trying to find any connection to anything else she’d read—Trimmer’s letters, the newspapers, even Susan’s postcards. Alice said she’d been over the newspapers with a fine-toothed comb and couldn’t come up with a single reason for someone to crash that train. Jean turned up empty-handed; all the personnel lists for the India and Burma stations were classified, and belonged to another office.

But it was Millie who dealt them the roundest blow. A week after their visit to Major Trimmer, she met them all at the library after work with another postcard from Susan.

“Don’t bother,” she said as Alice grabbed her pencil and paper, “I’ve already done it.” She produced a steno pad from her bag, reading simply: HURRY LORDS NEXT

“Well, that’s ominous,” Jean groused. “And typically opaque. Shame we’ve got absolutely no idea where to go from here.”

Lucy frowned. “We can keep digging. Maybe there’s something else in Trimmer’s past that we missed.”

“I’m tired of digging,” Alice said, a bit too loudly. They all looked at her. “Well, aren’t you? Except for a terribly longwinded but not very helpful interview with the Major, all we’ve been doing is digging! Endless paper, just chasing what Susan already seems to know! I’ve had it,” she said, wide-eyed. “I mean it. I truly am fed up. You know I love a good puzzle but there’s nothing here to puzzle out. We don’t need more data, we need to know where to _look_ for the data.”

Lucy felt a sort of buzz in her head, as if something were sliding into place.

The hum of Bletchley rose around her. She could almost smell the stale coffee and sweat and the endless machine grease. Sitting in that hut, she thought of all her work sifting data—especially of helping the analyst team process and correlate all the data from the decoded messages. Piles and piles of orders and troop movements, all combining to create the visible half of a shadowy whole: covert operations suddenly revealed through careful attention to negative space.

Secrets unveiled.

“I know how he did it,” she said softly, but no one heard her; they were arguing, back and forth about whether to give up. “Stop,” she said, louder, and then: “ _I know how he did it!_ ”

She turned red as she felt their eyes on her, but at the same time she felt exhilarated. She had solved it. They were going to find this man.

“Know how who did what, darling?” Millie said softly, seemingly taken aback.

“The blackmailer,” Lucy said, her throat tight with excitement. “I know how he discovered Major Trimmer’s secret. We’ve been trying to figure out who he is by looking for his motive, when all along we should’ve been looking at his _means_. Don’t you see? He knew where a troop was even though it _wasn’t supposed to be there_. He did just what we did in the war. He was listening to the radio.”

Jean’s mouth dropped open. “What?” she said. “You mean he was on the Japanese side?”

“But that can’t be right,” Millie interrupted. “Trimmer never radioed in his location.”

“No, but the Japanese knew it because he attacked them,” Alice said, warming to the theme. “Oh my god.”

“Well he can’t be in Japan,” Millie said. “Susan sent this to us for a reason. He’s here in Britain. Seems unlikely that he’s Japanese.”

“I don’t think he is,” Lucy said, surer and surer now. “I think he was part of Bletchley.”

Jean sucked in a breath.

Alice slapped the table, grinning. “It makes sense!” she said. “Lucy’s right. Trimmer never told anyone his location. But anyone listening to the Japanese signals would’ve known right away where he was. Remember what Trimmer said? They were attacked as soon as they left the village. The Japanese had been following them.”

“And if that’s true, then they would know his trajectory. They’d know he never stopped heading back toward the base,” Lucy said. “Of course, they’d have to know about the order to deploy...”

“Certainly they’d know that,” Jean said. “If you’re right, they’d have all the British troop orders in front of them. They’d have all the pieces of the puzzle. And they’d certainly notice if Trimmer wasn’t where he was supposed to be.”

“My god,” Millie breathed. “A blackmailer at Bletchley.”

“Well, at Delhi,” Jean said. “There was a listening post out there for most of the war. But he must’ve been trained at Bletchley, mustn’t he?”

They paused for a moment, letting it sink in.

“We handled so many secrets, didn’t we?” Lucy said at last.

“Aye,” Jean said. “An empire’s worth.”

Alice got up and grabbed her pencil and paper. “All right,” she said. “How do we find his name? No one’s going to breach the Official Secrets Act for this, even if we could get someone to believe us.”

“And no one’s going to want to protect a treasonous soldier, no matter his reasons,” Jean added.

“The letters,” Alice said, digging in the piles on the table. “We could look at the type. The kerning. Maybe we can figure out what kind of machine they were typed with.”

Millie flicked her cigarette and chuckled. “Oh bless you, darling, we can’t go checking every typewriter in the whole of Britain to see if it’s got a sticky letter K.” She took a drag. “Can we profile him?”

“We’ve nothing to go on,” Lucy objected. “Not even a motive.”

“Wait,” Alice said. Her eyes widened, getting that happy, glassy look they had when she was on the verge of a breakthrough. “We don’t need to know his motive. We don’t need the profile for someone who sabotages a train in India, that could be a zillion people. We need the profile _for someone who was recruited to work at Bletchley Park.”_

“Oh, you’re brilliant,” Millie cried, at the same moment that Jean said, “Clever girl, well done,” and Lucy covered her mouth with her hands in astonishment. It _was_ brilliant. And they were probably the only people on earth who could build such a profile.

“Right,” Alice said. “Departments, sound off.”

“Translator,” Millie said. “If he’s working in Japan, he either knows Japanese or he’s familiar with another language that doesn’t use the Roman alphabet. Greek, I’d bet, there were practically a hundred hapless classicists at Bletchley.”

“Archives and data,” said Jean. “He’s got to have Y-station training if he’s manning the radio, so he’s doing interception. Maybe also direction finding, if he’s the only one at his post to hear what Major Trimmer’s regiment is up to. So he’s got a sound grasp of geometry.”

Lucy chimed in. “Analysis and data processing. If he’s working alone, either he’s got a prodigious memory or he’s done stenog work and can write shorthand. Maybe both. He could be in theatre, that’s how they found me.”

“Machines and decryption,” Alice said, ticking off a fourth finger on her hand. “Possibly they’d want to know he could repair the machines if they broke, if he’s one of the few Code and Cypher men in Delhi. And he’d be working on Magic, not Enigma. Even if they gave him most of that training, he’d still need some facility with the machines. If he was good at cryptanalysis, maybe he had a background in combinatorics or linear algebra.”

“And let’s not forget the physical side,” Jean said. “He’s got to go through PT. Marches up and down the yard at dawn and all that. They’re not posting anyone to India who can’t carry a radio up a hillside if need be.”

“Bloody hell!” Millie cried suddenly, loud and dismayed, and dropped her cigarette on the floor where it rolled under Lucy’s shoe. She ground it out.

“Millie, what? What is it?” Alice said.

Millie looked round, her face ashen. “Alice, I think I know him. I know who it is.”

“What?” Jean said, at the same time that Alice frowned and said, “You can’t be serious.”

“I am serious,” Millie said. “Deadly.” She looked as though she’d seen Death himself pointing at her from the corner. “Lucy darling,” she said. “You remember all those weeks ago, when I told you I’d been translating for some professors down at Cambridge.”

Lucy nodded. “Yes. You had coffee with them sometimes.”

Millie swallowed and said, “One of them is a professor of Greek and Latin, who runs the Christmas panto every year. Big chap—very fit. He knows all the fellows in the maths department. I think he hangs out there. And I’ve just remembered that when we last had coffee, he had a book in his bag that was in Japanese.”

Alice wiped her brow. “I don’t know, Millie. Surely it can’t be that simple?”

To Lucy’s surprise, Jean began nodding. “Maybe it can. It would explain how he knew where Millie lived. He recognized her and—followed her somehow.”

“Come to that,” Millie said, breathless, “he didn’t have to follow me, once he recognized me. I gave the bastard my address, so he could mail me all those bloody articles.”

They stared at her.

“Can you ring up his secretary?” Lucy said. “Would she still be in? It’s six o’clock.”

“She works far harder than he does,” Millie said, and went to the phone. “Jean, can I—?”

“Go right ahead, dear,” Jean said.

When they finally dialled through, there was a tense moment when they realized that the professor himself might pick up on the other end; but then a woman’s voice said “Hello, Professor Shelton’s office,” and they all let out a collective sigh of relief.

Millie cradled the earpiece away from her head so they could all hear. “Bessie? It’s Millie,” she said. “How are you, darling?”

“Millie!” Bessie’s voice crackled through the wire. “What a treat to hear from you! That sweater you gave me is really top. I wear it all the time now. How have you been?”

“Well actually, darling, I’m in a bit of a jam. I’ve got these articles for Shelton but he hasn’t marked the pages he wants translated, and I was wondering if he could meet me.”

“Oh,” Bessie said tinnily, “Well, he’s in London through the week-end, I think, but he didn’t leave a forwarding number. Something about seeing Lord Cholmondeley speak in Parliament, I think.”

 _Lords_ , Lucy mouthed, just as Alice picked up Susan’s postcard and tapped it. Millie waved them both away.

“If he calls in, Millie, do you want me to have him ring you?”

“Thanks, Bess, that’d be super,” Millie said. “Bye now.”

“Take care, Millie,” said Bessie, and then the line clicked off.

Millie rounded on Lucy. “Darling, have you read the papers recently? What’s in Parliament today and tomorrow?”

“Lord Cholmondeley...” Lucy said. She scanned everything she could think of—the paper from yesterday, the bills posted on the walls she’d passed on her way here, the papers at the newsstand. _Empire Fallen?_ read the Guardian, and she sucked in a breath. “Today. It’s today. ‘Lord Cholmondeley will address the House on the subject of relations with the independent Indian state. In light of their recent troubles, Lord Cholmondeley proposes to offer financial support to India, despite vociferous objections from those who support a return to the Raj—’”

“That’s it, that’s it,” Millie said. “ _That’s_ what all this is about. Our blackmailer’s motive. He sabotaged the train because it made the Indian government look weak. Think how many times you’ve heard the radio blasting some nonsense about the empire rising again. And now here’s someone saying India ought to be supported as an independent state.”

Jean blinked. “He’s going to kill him.”

“What?” Lucy said, startled.

Alice put a hand to her head. “I think Jean’s right. I mean, he murdered hundreds of people in India just to tarnish their government’s image. It’s hard to imagine he’d balk at assassinating a minor lord, if he thinks Cholmondeley’s an obstacle.”

“We’ve got to go now,” Millie said. “We’ve got to find Shelton and stop him. Who knows how long the session will last.”

“Under no circumstances,” Jean cried. “We have to go to the police, Millie. This is a dangerous business. We are not equipped to handle an assassination on two minutes’ notice.”

“That’s why we have to go, Jean. There’s no _time_ for the police. Sorry, Lucy.”

“No, I agree,” Lucy said, feeling her pulse pick up. “They’ll need all kinds of questions answered and they might not even come along. We should go.”

Alice shrugged her coat on. “Let’s split up. Jean, you and I will go to the station. Lucy and Millie, you get down to Parliament and do whatever you can.” She looked worried, but Lucy felt thrilled to the bone. Parliament! They were going to save a member of the House of Lords!

“Let’s go,” Millie said, and they all grabbed their coats and hurried out the door, Jean pausing only long enough to lock it. On the street, Millie hailed a cab and shepherded Lucy inside, waving goodbye to Alice and Jean. “Houses of Parliament,” she said. “Quick as you like, please.” They tore away from the curb, and then Lucy and Millie were in the back seat of a taxicab, alone, their blood pumping hotly beneath the skin.

“Millie,” Lucy said.

Millie turned to her, her chest heaving. “I know. You’ll tell me not to be scared, that it isn’t like last time. I know that. I can’t help it, Lucy. I don’t know how you’re so calm.”

“I’m not,” Lucy said, but she didn’t feel scared, either; she felt sure that she was in the right place and doing the right thing, and whatever would happen didn’t matter, because she was with Millie. “And that isn’t what I was going to say.”

“What, darling?” Millie said, distracted, peering at the traffic ahead of them.

Lucy summoned her nerve. “I told Jean I wasn’t going to see her anymore.”

That got Millie’s attention. “Oh. Is—is everything all right?”

“Yes,” Lucy said. She glanced at the driver, but he wasn’t paying any attention. She bit her lip. She had been going over and over it in her head and couldn’t make the words right, but she knew she had to say it. It was now or never. “Yes, Jean’s fine. She’s a dear. I told her that—I was in love with someone else.”

Everything seemed to stop for a moment. Millie’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened in a little O.

“Someone else,” she said softly.

Lucy nodded.

“Parliament,” said the driver. “Here we are. Visitor’s entrance.”

Lucy paid the driver and they hopped out, looking around briefly to see if Millie saw Shelton anywhere before dashing inside.

The guards nodded to them as they passed through toward the visitors’ viewing area; even out in the hall, they could hear Cholmondeley booming about _India_ and _our national duty_ and so on. As they turned a corner, behind the entrance to the gallery, they found themselves briefly out of sight of the guards.

“Wait,” Lucy said. “This is just where he’d hide. Somewhere the guards can’t see him when he pulls out a weapon. Let’s stay here a moment.” She pulled on Millie’s sleeve, tugging her behind a pillar, and then abruptly they were standing quite close.

Slowly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Lucy reached forward and took Millie’s hand. She held it. Millie’s fingers curled around hers, her face pink with feeling.

“Lucy,” Millie whispered. “Darling Lucy.” She was shaking. “I didn’t know, I wasn’t sure if you—I spent all those years wondering—”

Lucy couldn’t wait any longer. She stepped forward, across the unbridgeable distance, and kissed her.

Heat like nothing Lucy had ever known burst over her skin and ran like flame through her body. Millie groaned, and suddenly she was gripping Lucy by the hip, pressing her mouth so hard against Lucy’s she thought neither of them might be able to breathe but she didn’t care, she didn’t care about any of it, she was kissing beautiful Millie at last, and wondrously, incredibly, Millie was kissing her back.

When they finally broke the kiss, Millie whispered, “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

“When this is done,” Lucy said, “you can do that as much as you like.”

Millie smiled tenderly and opened her mouth to reply; but then her whole face changed, and she pulled Lucy further behind the column.

“Look!” she hissed. “It’s him!”

She pointed. Not twenty feet away, loitering around another entrance to the gallery, and holding a pistol, was a large man in a blazer and glasses.

“Shelton?” Lucy said, and Millie nodded. “What do we do?”

Millie set her teeth. “I’ll tackle him if I have to,” she said.

But Lucy had an idea. “Maybe you don’t have to.” She felt around in her coat—yes, there it was in the pocket, just where she’d left it. She’d forgotten about it weeks ago. “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be right back.”

Taking a deep breath, Lucy slipped away back down the hall toward the visitors’ entrance until she found one of the guards.

“Miss,” he said, nodding politely. “What can I do for you?”

You can do this, Lucy told herself. It isn’t even much of a lie. Just brazen it out.

“Detective Lucy Gladstone, Scotland Yard,” she said, flashing Ben’s badge long enough for the name _Gladstone_ to register. “I have a suspect in the hallway. My backup’s on the way, but he’s armed and dangerous. I need assistance subduing him in order to hold him for questioning.” She stopped herself before she turned the sentence into a question, reminding herself that detectives don’t ask favors; they just say what they need. She lifted her chin a bit, hoping it made her look more determined.

The guard’s eyes narrowed. “Detective, eh?” he said. “I’ve got a mate on the force. Maybe you stole that badge. Who’s your boss?”

Heart pounding, not letting herself pause, Lucy said, “DCI Reginald Martin. And he won’t be happy to hear you’re hindering a detective who’s working on an active investigation. We’re wasting time.”

Maybe it was her manner that did it, or the mention of DCI Martin’s name; either way, the guard nodded and said, “Right. Lead the way.”

Praying silently that Shelton hadn’t gone anywhere, Lucy crept back toward the gallery entrance with the guard at her heels, his service revolver out.

“Just round that corner—” she said, and then the guard and Shelton saw one another in the same instant. Shelton lifted his pistol at the same time that the guard raised his own weapon, and Lucy held her breath, not knowing what to do, bracing herself for the worst—

Then all of a sudden, from nowhere, Millie _did_ tackle Shelton, sending his shot wide and his pistol clattering across the ground away from him as he went sprawling. The guard grunted and Lucy felt something splatter her coat, and she turned to see that the bullet had struck him in the shoulder.

“Go, I’m right behind you,” he gasped, and Lucy ran.

“Don’t let him get out the back exit!” she called to Millie, who was already scrambling after Shelton. Lucy was fast, faster than she’d remembered; she’d always been a good runner but she rarely had reason to run.

But as she rounded the hall, she saw that fast as she and Millie were, Shelton was faster, scampering toward the exit and certain disappearance.

“No!” Lucy shouted. He couldn’t get away, not _now_ , not when they were so very close to stopping him. And Susan, she thought, what about Susan—

Then the doors swung open, and there between Shelton and his escape were Jean, Alice, and DCI Martin himself, looking like a very angel of justice.

“Stop that man!” Lucy gasped; but Martin had already wound up, and he gave Shelton such a wallop that Lucy swore she could hear the _crack_ of his jaw. He crumpled to the floor.

Jean had caught Millie in her arms. “Millie, are you all right,” Jean was saying, and Millie was breathing too hard to answer, but she nodded. She pointed back toward Lucy, and Jean’s eyes widened; Lucy remembered the blood on her sleeve.

“Oh,” she said and shook her head. “There’s a guard down,” she added. “Shelton shot him. Probably would’ve shot me too.” Lucy heard footsteps; then the guard himself appeared, his shoulder wet and bloody but still on his feet.

“DCI Martin,” he said, panting. “This is one hell of a brave detective you’ve got here. If all the women on the force are like her, we’ll have Britain in top shape within a fortnight.” He grinned at Lucy.

Martin, halfway through cuffing Shelton, looked up at Lucy, and her blood seemed to freeze. She would be fired at the least. Probably brought up on charges.

But Martin didn’t growl at her, didn’t demand she come with him to the station. He just nodded, and said, “Mmhhmm”; and then he carted Shelton off through the doors like he was a sack of potatoes.

“You should get that looked at,” Lucy said to the guard.

He winced. “It’s just a flesh wound. I saw worse in the war.” Then he smiled. “Don’t suppose you’d like to escort me to the hospital, detective?”

Lucy smiled back. “Thanks, but I’m afraid I’m spoken for.” And then she turned back toward the open doors, and there, silhouetted by the evening light, were Jean and Alice and Millie, waiting for her. All of them brave and true and brilliant, all of them determined to get the job done no matter what. Bletchley girls, just like her.

“We did it, chums!” Millie cried, hugging Lucy and Alice around the shoulders as they went out into the air. “Lord, I need a drink!”

“That’s a sign that you’re still breathing,” Alice laughed. “Sure, let’s have a drink. We can write Susan a postcard from the bar. Where to?”

“Someplace special,” Lucy said. “We deserve that.”

Jean smiled, a secretive, Cheshire smile. “I know just the place.”

*

The place turned out to be down a back alley and through a secret door, and once inside, Lucy immediately decided it was the most magnificent place she’d ever seen. Not because it was an especially impressive bar, but because of the _people_.

There were men in lipstick and heels and can-can dancer outfits with plumage fairly exploding from the crowns of their heads, some of them talking to men in everyday dress, even kissing them. There were women in tuxedos and in suits, women in workmen’s overalls and girls in skirts, all talking together, dancing together. The air seemed light as champagne and twice as intoxicating. Lucy held her breath.

“An oldie but a goodie, this place,” Millie grinned. “This one’s new on you, eh, Lucy?”

“Me too,” Alice said, her eyes fairly popping out. “Gracious me. I’ve heard about places like this, but—wow.” She looked at Jean. “This is your usual haunt?”

But Jean wasn’t listening; her arrival had attracted a crowd, and she was quickly swept away into the depths of the bar by an adoring entourage of beautiful young things.

Lucy laughed. “I guess Jean has it pretty good. Let’s find a table.”

They spent a wonderful night in that bar, drinking cocktails and recounting old times. Alice asked questions at first, but eventually Millie convinced her just to soak it in, and then she appeared to relax more than she had in ages. Lucy loved to watch the clientele, especially the women in suits and tuxedos, broad shoulders and slicked-back hair contrasting with their soft features. Eventually Jean found her way back to them and introduced a few of her admirers, all of whom seemed terribly impressed by anyone whom Jean would account as a friend. As it got late, a drag show began, and they cheered until their throats were raw, Alice louder than any of them.

“Come home with me,” Lucy said into Millie’s ear. Millie turned her face toward her, eyes soft.

“Every night, if you like,” she said.

The cab ride was an indiscriminate haze of happy drunkenness and muttered reminiscences—all the things they’d noticed about each other over the years, all the things they remembered about each other—though they were careful to be circumspect. If they seemed a little too friendly, Lucy thought the cabbie would put it down to their inebriation. He didn’t say anything about it, though; he just wished them a good night as they stumbled out of the cab. And then Lucy unlocked the door, and they were in the flat at last.

“Hi,” Lucy said, leaning drowsily against the doorframe. She dropped her bag to the floor.

Millie looked her over for a moment; then she practically dove on her, hands messing Lucy’s curls, just the way Lucy liked, her lips pressed hotly against Lucy’s own, and then she opened under Millie’s kisses, and everything was wet heat and the taste of _kir royale_. Lucy made a noise—she needed Millie’s coat to come off—and when she pulled at Millie’s coatsleeves, Millie paused long enough to remove her coat and her blouse in one smooth motion, and then Lucy had her hands on Millie’s breasts and it was wonderful.

They stumbled toward the bedroom, unwilling to stop kissing long enough to look where they were going, Millie unbuttoning Lucy’s dress all the while. When they hit the bed, Lucy reached for the buckle of Millie’s trousers, and Millie unfastened Lucy’s hair, and then they were rolling around in the bedclothes in their underthings, kissing and kissing and feeling every inch of each other’s bodies that they could.

When Millie grabbed Lucy by the wrist, Lucy froze. Misunderstanding, Millie whispered, “Sorry, I shan’t,” and let go.

“No, don’t stop,” Lucy said. She tilted her head back so she could look Millie in the eyes. “I want you to. That’s what I love about you, Millie, you’re so tall and strong. I just want you to—ravish me, Millie. Please. I want you to.” She searched Millie’s face, and for a moment she was afraid Millie would balk; but then Millie kissed her fiercely and gripped both her wrists, pinning them above her head, and Lucy moaned “Yes, _yes_ ,” and rocked her hips up as Millie pushed her knee between her thighs.

Millie kept her on edge for a deliciously long time, kissing and biting and rocking against her, and then at last she did something no one else had done for Lucy before: she lowered her mouth between Lucy’s legs and licked at her, licked and sucked, all the while pinching Lucy’s nipples terribly hard and smacking at her breasts, until Lucy was sure she had soaked the bedclothes. Then at last she cried out wordlessly, loud and long, and she felt Millie’s own body grow tense in sympathetic pleasure.

“Millie,” she gasped. “Oh. Can I do that to you?”

“Yes,” Millie said, laughing low in her throat. “I’ll teach you.”

And she did, telling Lucy just where to lick and what to do with her fingers, and she ground her hips roughly up against Lucy as she worked, so that Lucy’s whole face seemed slick and hot. It was the most exciting sensation she could remember having, even more than Millie doing the same thing to her, especially because of the way Millie told her what to do; and when she managed to make Millie arch and curl, she thought that she wanted nothing more than to do this every night for the rest of her life.

Sated, they crawled under the coves and cuddled up in bed together, sweaty and smelling of sex. Millie tucked Lucy under her arm and kissed her forehead before reaching over to the side table. She sighed.

“What?” Lucy said.

“Cig,” said Millie. “I keep them by the bed, but you don’t smoke.”

“Ben did,” Lucy replied. “Top drawer.”

Millie leaned over and fiddled for a moment; then Lucy heard the distinctive click of the lighter and the soft noise of paper catching fire. Millie rolled back over and began to stroke Lucy’s hair. Everything was still.

“Will you still be here in the morning?” Lucy said, drowsing.

Millie kissed her hair. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”


	6. Epilogue

Snow was coming down outside and dusted the tops of the trains as they rolled into the station. Millie had put on her new winter coat, a shimmery, peach-colored woolen affair bought with money from her recent promotion to working directly under Major Trimmer. Lucy thought she looked very dashing, even though she would never have bought such a brightly colored coat for herself. She tucked her arm through Millie’s as they waited on the platform for the train to roll in.

As the passengers alighted, she felt Millie stiffen a bit. Nerves, Lucy thought, though she’d never admit it. She didn’t blame her; Lucy was a bit nervous too, and she wasn’t the one meeting her former flame at King’s Cross.

“Millie!” Susan called, spotting them. “Oh, and Lucy! You both came, how wonderful! I’ll just get my things from the porter.” She vanished into the crowd again.

“You’re the best, you know,” Lucy said. “And I adore you.”

Millie squeezed her arm. “Darling,” she said. “Thank you. I’ll be all right.”

They went to a tea shop not far from the station, since Susan was desperate for “a real English scone,” as she said. She looked hale and happy, much tanner than she’d been when she left two years before. Lucy and Millie let her do the ordering; that was Susan, in charge wherever she went. She wondered, not for the first time, how Susan and Millie had managed to date at all.

“Well,” Susan said, when the waitress had gone, “you must tell me all about yourselves. I read in the papers about the arrest, of course. And I got your postcard. Excellent work.”

Millie rolled her eyes, but Lucy just smiled. “Thank you. I hope we did you proud.”

Susan gave her one of those odd little half-smiles that made her look so much like a bird. “You’ve done us proud, more like. I also read that you’ve been made a detective! Is that right?”

Lucy blushed. Self-consciously, she touched the badge in her coat pocket—her very own badge, not Ben’s. Martin had never looked so mysterious as when he’d handed it over. But she’d also read his report on their case, since she was the one filing it: _top notch detective work_ , it said. _Recommend for immediate promotion._

“Yes,” Lucy said. “I have my own cases now. And before you ask, no, I can’t tell you about them.” Which wasn’t quite true; she told Millie all about them, and about how thrilling it was to be the lead investigator, and how intimidating, too.

“That’s all right,” Susan said. “Oh, tea. Thank you,” she added, nodding as the waitress returned. They paused for a minute while the waitress poured; the steam curled and danced above the cups.

When the waitress had gone, Millie said, “We sorted out your revelation about the train—or we think we did. Adverts in the newspaper?” She picked up the sugar and dropped two cubes into her cup.

“Yes, that’s right. Although I had an inside man. Timothy was called in to investigate the crash, and he discovered the part was faulty.”

“And the House of Lords?”

Susan nodded. “Also Timothy. He’d heard that Cholmondeley was causing quite a stir in imperialist circles—had rather a following in India, in fact, as you might imagine. Timothy was sure the saboteur would go for him. As it turned out, he was right. Quite mad, that man Shelton—all that ranting and raving about how the empire would rise and we would see the Raj return again.” Her eyes had become unfocused, and she seemed to be remembering something unpleasant; then she came back to herself. “Well. That’s all done now. And you’ve both been well since?”

Millie sipped her tea. “Yes, and Jean and Alice too. They’ll come round for dinner tomorrow, Lucy’s cooking.”

That gave Susan pause. She looked up, a sharper expression in her eyes.

“You’re living with Lucy now?” she said, a slight emphasis on Lucy’s name, as if to say: with _Lucy_ , instead of—someone else, perhaps?

“Mmhmm,” Millie said, and Lucy just sipped her tea, her cheeks turning slowly pink.

Susan looked from one to the other of them. Then she blinked, and Lucy fairly saw the gears turning in her head. “Well, that’s lovely,” she said at last, and Millie seemed to relax infinitesimally. “I should have guessed you two would get along.”

“Famously,” Millie said, with a bit too much insinuation, and Lucy elbowed her, giggling.

“Do come around tomorrow for dinner, Susan,” Lucy said. “We’ll all of us talk about old times.”

“And old friends,” Millie added, folding her hand over Lucy’s with a daring smile. “What would we do without them?”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my betas, toft and thingswithwings; to the dreadfully clever sifr, for helping me think up a crime; and to singlecrow, for letting me natter on in a million emails about Parliament and post-Raj India.
> 
> Quite a lot of research went into this fic, as you can well imagine. While I doubt anyone would like to slodge their way through the panoply of monographs I pulled in order to get the details right, I do recommend _Codebreaker in the Far East_ , by Alan Stripp. I confess that his manner is offputting and at times quite racist and sexist, and that his experiences formed the pattern for the villainous Prof. Shelton, but his writing is capable and his memoir fascinating. If you've ever wanted to know what the Government Code & Cypher School was doing in the Pacific theatre, this is the book for you. 
> 
> A handful of other details may be worth mentioning:
> 
> \- I added Lucy's mental self-correction when she remembers that Customs & Excise now belongs to _Her_ Majesty, not His Majesty, because at the time of this fic Queen Elizabeth II's coronation was quite fresh. Incidentally, finding the location of the Custom House gave me the devil of a time, as Customs  & Excise was folded in with Inland Revenue about a decade ago and all the websites very helpfully gave me the correct (contemporary) address. Woe betide those of us who desire historical specificity! 
> 
> \- Major Trimmer's dark mutterings about the "rot" going around regarding the resurgence of empire are, I am sorry to tell you, period-accurate. If you like, you can find some truly distasteful speeches from members of the House of Lords about ensuring that the word "empire" was kept in common parlance. I invented Lord Cholmondeley (pronounced "Chumley") as an explicit antidote to that rubbish, but of course there were also plenty of people who did support an independent India.
> 
> \- The "Kashmir problem" got little time in this story in the end, but it formed a great deal of my inspiration. Dissent over the adjudication of Kashmir led to all-out war between India and Pakistan, and then, when it became clearer where the borders would be drawn, to a migration of peoples both ways across the border which was at the time one of the largest in the history of the world. Millions of people became refugees, and there really were massive problems with making sure the trains ran as they were meant to. In 1953 and 1954 the British Foreign Office actually became embroiled with a Portuguese train company in the course of trying to keep things running, which you can read about for yourself if you too download their declassified document archive.
> 
> \- Although I invented Major Trimmer's regiment, their experiences were drawn from life. Toward the end of the war, the famine in India drove a great deal of the desertions from the British Indian Army (part of the Raj) into the Indian National Army (which fought to gain Indian independence). Soldiers really did give their rations away to people in the villages they passed through, although none that I know of suffered the same consequences as Major Trimmer. 
> 
> \- Susan's crossword in the _Times of India_ was real, and it really was right next to the classified ads. I never knew you could advertise for a generator in the newspaper! The world is an amazing place. I'm terribly grateful to those classified sections for helping me figure out how Susan solved her end of the mystery.
> 
> \- The show never tells us explicitly what jobs each of the girls held at Bletchley, so I have assigned them according to their apparent abilities. While each hut was usually divided into a separate task, some huts contained workers with different skill sets combining their abilities to solve a particular problem, such as Alan Turing's famous Naval Hut 8, and I have presumed that our heroes worked in a similar situation. Susan, obviously, would have worked with Lucy as an analyst.
> 
> \- Lastly, Lucy's promotion to detective is also period-correct; this era was the first to see women working in such capacities at Scotland Yard. I like to believe that Lucy would have become DCI herself one day.


End file.
